December 15, 2009

Republicans question McKenna's actions as GOP chairman

State Republican officials are looking into the use of about $28,000 in GOP funds to conduct an April poll of potential candidates that included then-party chairman Andy McKenna, who is now running for governor, the new head of the state GOP said Tuesday.

“Questions have been raised. I’ve begun a process to get answers to those questions and we’re going to do it as quickly as possible,” said Pat Brady, who succeeded McKenna as state Republican chairman in August.

News of the internal GOP probe prompted criticism from three of McKenna’s opponents for the Feb. 2 primary nomination for governor, who contended the former state party chairman and Chicago businessman failed to demonstrate ethical values with his actions.

Tyrone Fahner, a McKenna friend who chaired the state GOP's finance committee at the time, said the party's major campaign contributors decided to authorize the poll and it was Fahner's idea to include McKenna's name.

"I thought it would make sense to run a poll and include anybody that might be in the mix, and since (McKenna) had run before, I thought it was a good idea," said Fahner, a former state attorney general who said he was authorized to speak for McKenna's campaign. He added that officials from both the Republican Governors' Association and the GOP's national senatorial committee had discussed possible McKenna candidacies. "This was not his idea," Fahner said.

In the April poll conducted by the Tarrance Group Inc., McKenna’s name was included among others when Republicans were asked who would be the best GOP nominee for governor and for U.S. senator. McKenna previously lost a 2004 bid for the Republican Senate nomination.

After he quit as state chairman in August, following four years in the post, McKenna considered a bid for Senate but dropped the idea when Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk got in the race.

Under the state GOP’s ethics code, Republican leaders pledge to follow guidelines in which their actions are “for the sole benefit of the Republican Party and the general public, without suggestion of service to promote their private interests.”

The review of McKenna’s use of party funds to conduct the poll was approved by the state Republican Party’s top leaders at a meeting on Saturday, said sources who asked not to be identified because party rules prohibited them from discussing the move. The review was authorized without dissent by the members of the Republican State Central Committee who attended, the sources said.

State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, among the seven Republicans seeking the governor’s nomination, said he spoke with GOP Chair Pat Brady, who confirmed the party’s review of McKenna. The Bradys are not related.

“This clearly is an issue that needs to be cleared up immediately,” Bill Brady said, contending the allegations “cloud that brand” of ethics that Republicans are trying to promote. “I’m calling on candidate McKenna to immediately come forward and not hide behind anything and make clear how and where he used funds as the state party chairman.”

Political pundit Dan Proft of Chicago, another GOP governor candidate, obtained some of the polling documents and contended McKenna’s move was “a typical insider play by a typical insider politician.”

Bob Schillerstrom, the DuPage County Board chairman and another governor contender, noted McKenna’s extensive TV ad campaign which uses Blagojevich’s hair style as symbolizing a corrupt political culture in Springfield.

“His behavior illustrates the same cynical nature that Illinois residents have come to know so well from their politicians,” Schillerstrom said in a statement. “He may as well have a wig on.”

Posted at 09:51:28 PM

Comments

Oh come on, it's nonsense that "party rules prohibited them from discussing the move." Let's see those rules. We never will because they don't exist.

These misfits are always making up rules to try and excuse what they don't want to do - meanwhile they don't follow the ones that actually do exist.

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

Past posts

Clout has a special meaning in Chicago, where it can be a noun, a verb or an adjective. This exercise of political influence in a uniquely Chicago style was chronicled in the Tribune cartoon "Clout Street" in the early 1980s. Clout Street, the blog, offers an inside look at the politics practiced from Chicago's City Hall to the Statehouse in Springfield, through the eyes of the Tribune's political and government reporters.